Young Sanders Fans Pledge Solidarity With Verizon Strikers -- Even if It Means Slower Internet

Thursday, 14 April 2016 00:00

By Wilson Dizard, Truthout | Report

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35648-young-sanders-fans-pledge-solidarity-with-verizon-strikers-even-if-it-means-slower-internet

A labor strike by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) served as the centerpiece Wednesday of Sen. Bernie Sanders' rally in New York City, where even his most plugged in supporters said they'd settle for slower internet if it meant the CWA would win.

With Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton getting the lion's share of airtime on cable news, Sanders' campaign has relied on the internet to get its message out to supporters, many of them young people voting for the first time. Many young people in the United States also rely on the internet for almost every aspect of their daily life, from getting around to getting an education.

Despite bringing in thousands of non-union workers to cover striking CWA workers' jobs, Verizon warned customers this week that "they may experience service interruptions as [the company] works to solve issues with union leaders," PennLive reported.

Seeking better pay and working conditions, CWA members said that they wondered if young people understood that their electronic lives don't happen through magic, but through the sweat and blood of blue-collar workers.

"I don't know. They should ask their parents. Ask them how they grew up, how everything was built," said Terry Loughland, 52, who has been with Verizon for 28 years, beginning back when it was Bell Atlantic. "It takes a lot to build this communications infrastructure. It doesn't just come. But how'd it get there? How'd you get there? I'm middle class. People might think I'm making a lot of money but I'm not. I got three kids in college, and I'm barely getting by."

[…]

At the workers' rally, Sanders called Verizon "another major American corporation trying to destroy the lives of working Americans," The Huffington Post reported.

Sanders received an endorsement from the CWA in December 2015. The union represents Truthout's staff workers.

"Verizon is one of the largest, most profitable corporations in this country," Sanders told striking Verizon workers. "[The company wants] to outsource decent-paying jobs. They want to give their CEO $20 million a year."

Some of the youngest Sanders supporters, now just graduating high school with little recollection of the world before Facebook and the iPhone, said they would give up connectivity if it meant workers would win.

Even some high school seniors pledged to give up the internet in solidarity with the workers -- even for a month.

"I would support the CWA and not Verizon," said Malena Suarez, 17, from Queens, who hopes to study political science. "I think that by supporting Verizon you are just indulging in a toxic capitalist society we live in. But to support the workers is to support our First Amendment right to strike. It's the voice of the people we're hearing and not the voice of the corporations."

Oscar Salazar, 20, a student at Westchester Community College, stood by the fountain in Manhattan's Washington Square Park wearing a T-shirt covered in photos of Sanders' face. He'd bought the apparel online. Yet even if it meant having to deal with slower internet speeds, Salazar said he'd support a strike.

"They deserve to have a living wage," he said, along with "all the rights that come with a living wage [like] the time off work ... it's not right for them to live in New York City where it's very expensive."

"Even if I had no internet, I would be able to adapt," the computer science and political science student said. "I feel like we would make it work. We shouldn't punish the workers."

The vice president of the New York University College Democrats, Michael DeLuca, 21, who is studying political science and Mandarin Chinese, said he was willing to make that temporary trade-off -- slower internet in the service of workers' rights -- but said it wasn't necessary.

"I don't think those kinds of sacrifices are needed. Businesses have had to compensate for this kind of thing forever. They can afford to treat their workers properly and also offer the same level of service," he said.

"I'm comfortable with some disruption in the short term. That's how we get a lot of the progress we see in this country. But in the long term, the burden is on the business to treat their workers fairly and then deal with the costs of that," DeLuca added. 

Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

Wilson Dizard

Wilson Dizard is a freelance reporter and photographer whose work has appeared at Al Jazeera America and the New York Post.

Slavoj Žižek – Masterclass 2: Surplus-Value, Surplus-Enjoyment, Surplus-Knowledge

http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2016/04/slavoj-zizek-masterclass-2-surplus-value-surplus-enjoyment-surplus-knowledge/

Event Date: 19 April 2016

Room B01
 
Clore Management Building
 
Birkbeck, University of London
 
Torrington Square
 
London WC1E 7HX

The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities presents:

Masterclass 2: Is Surplus-Value Marx’s Name For Surplus-Enjoyment?

Slavoj Žižek (International Director, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities) - Is Surplus-Value Marx’s Name For Surplus-Enjoyment?

Jacques Lacan located the origin of his key notion of plus-de-jouir (surplus-enjoyment) in Marx’s notion of surplus-value, and it is worth exploring in detail the homology of the two notions, adding a third one, that of surplus-knowledge, a pseudo-knowledge in the guise of which our ignorance appears (“supreme” knowledge of God and other hidden forces, conspiracy theories, etc.). Such an analysis is crucial for resuscitating Marx’s critique of political economy, as well as for properly understanding today’s global capitalism and its ideological effects, up to fundamentalist violence.

Recommended reading:
 
Slavoj Žižek, ‘The Return of the Critique of Political Economy’ in Living in the End of Times (Verso 2010)
 
Samo Tomšič, The Capitalist Unconscious (Verso Books 2015)

Sanders' Political Revolution Draws Nearly 30,000 to New York City Rally

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders drew a raucous crowd of 27,000 to a Manhattan rally ahead of the critical New York primary

by Nika Knight, staff writer

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/14/sanders-political-revolution-draws-nearly-30000-new-york-city-rally

"There are a lot of people here tonight!" observed New York native Bernie Sanders as he began speaking to a raucous, cheering crowd of 27,000 in New York City's Washington Square park on Wednesday night, at the largest rally of the presidential hopeful's campaign thus far.

Members of the crowd climbed trees and crowded at the windows of surrounding buildings to catch a glimpse of the Vermont senator, and occasionally punctuated the candidate's speech with chants of "Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!"

The crowd wore face paint, touted placards declaring "Brooklyn is Berning" and "Democracy v Oligarchy, Humanity v Greed," and some even arrived sporting Bernie Sanders costumes and puppets.

And while many attendees were young, Sanders also drew an older generation of progressives who remembered attending rallies in Washington Square to protest the Vietnam War in their youth.

One such member of the crowd was Robert Carpenter, a retired accountant and veteran from Queens, who told the New York Times, "Bernie is me. I am Bernie."

"I'm one year older than him," Carpenter told the newspaper. "We've been fighting for the same causes our entire lives."

Carpenter also told the Times that he could never vote for Sanders' opponent: "I will never, ever forgive [Hillary Clinton] for her voting for the Iraq War. To say it was a mistake? After all those people were killed and maimed? I do not accept that."

Before Sanders' speech, the popular NYC-based band Vampire Weekend warmed up the crowd, and speeches from famous New Yorkers Rosario Dawson, Tim Robbins, and Spike Lee followed to praise the so-called outsider candidate to the overwhelming crowd of supporters.

Sanders himself even seemed surprised by the size of the rally, and smiled broadly when he arrived on the stage to deliver a speech that focused on a few of the touchstones of his campaign: corporate greed, campaign finance reform, climate change, and income inequality.

Speaking in the state for which Clinton served two terms as senator, and in the same city Wall Street financiers call home, the outspoken democratic socialist candidate also expressed optimism for his chances of winning the state's upcoming primary.

"When I look at an unbelievable crowd like this," Sanders said, "I believe we're going to win in New York next Tuesday."

His chances at winning, he argued, were good, particularly if the tens of thousands who came out on a cold Wednesday night to hear him speak presaged a large voter turnout for the state's April 19 primary.

Sanders also returned to his campaign's message about political revolution, urging the crowd to continue to fight to overturn the status quo.

"What this campaign is profoundly about," Sanders said, "is that change is never from the top on down. It is always from the bottom on up."

The senator continued:

What this campaign is about is the understanding that when we stand together—black, and white, and Latino, and Asian American, and Native American. When we do not allow the Donald Trumps of the world to divide us up, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. What this campaign understands is that real change is when 100 years ago, workers who were exploited, who worked 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, stood together and said 'we will be treated with dignity and respect,' and formed a trade union.

Sanders also reiterated his support for the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union of Verizon employees who went on strike on Wednesday for a fair contract. CWA signs from the strike could be seen waving from the crowd; it appeared that many striking workers attended the rally after picketing all day.

"Tonight I want to take my hat off to the CWA. Thank you," Sanders said.

He told his supporters, "They are standing up to a greedy corporation that wants to cut their healthcare benefits, send decent paying jobs abroad, and then provide $20 million a year to their CEO."

The progressive crowd booed.

"And Verizon is just a poster child for what so many corporations are doing today," Sanders continued. "This campaign is sending a message to corporate America: You cannot have it all."

The crowd erupted into cheers.